Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that President Donald Trump is actively working on ideas to “transform” Gaza “the day after” Hamas is removed.
Trump said in February that the U.S. would “take over” Gaza and “own” it — a suggestion that changed the strategic equation and implied that the U.S. could control a key piece of coastal territory near the Suez Canal.
While his suggestion led to humorous speculation that Trump might build one of his famous beach and golf resorts on the Mediterranean shore, the point was that the U.S. was committing to removing Hamas entirely.
Netanyahu spoke to Breitbart News about the challenge of urban warfare in Gaza — and the postwar future:
Breitbart News: You know, some of these issues are as old as the Bible itself. When you read the story of the kidnapping and rape of Dinah, for example, in the book of Genesis, you have Jacob’s sons who attack the local population who carry out these atrocities, and Jacob wonders whether that attack has now made him odious to his neighbors. And it’s a very similar situation. Israel has to defend itself, but it then is criticized for doing so, and that’s the situation you have in Gaza — very, very difficult. You have to defend yourself. You have to win the war. But to many people observing the war from the outside, the results are very difficult to understand and to absorb.
And I want to ask you about the long-term future of Gaza. President Trump said he wanted to take it for the United States. Then he suggested Israel would do the fighting, [and] then the Americans would move in. What does that really mean? And in a more lighthearted way, I suppose I could ask, are we going to see a Trump intercontinental resort on beaches of Gaza anytime soon, with a golf course and perhaps a Dubai-like shopping center? I mean, is Gaza going to change fundamentally? Because strategically, it seems to be a constant problem.
Netanyahu: Well, it will not change if Hamas remains there, and we have to get rid of Hamas. And you know what we have now? — and I don’t think your audience knows this — we have Gazans fighting Hamas alongside us, because once they see that we’re approaching the end of our military campaign, and we have one or two strongholds of Hamas left, primarily in the city of Gaza along the coast. Once they see that, they they join us and they fight Hamas. They actually fight Hamas. So when that happens, obviously the opportunities abound. And I think, yes, you can have a transitional government.
America will play whatever roles it wants, because it’s a welcome partner in anything. But I think President Trump is discussing this very moment, ideas of how to transform Gaza the day after the day after, what the day after Hamas, because Gaza can only have a different future for its for Palestinians and for Israel alike, and for the entire Middle East, only if Hamas is defeated.
And as far as the criticism that we receive, especially from some European governments, you know, they say we’re all for Israel’s right to exercise, you know, to for right for self defense, except we don’t allow you to exercise that right. You know, Israel should have the right to to defend itself, but don’t exercise that right. Well, I like to see what they would do if they had thousands and thousands of their citizens kidnapped and murdered and raped and beheaded from, you know, something right next to their capital. What would they do? I don’t think they’d go to the lengths that we went to, and that we are going to, to prevent starvation, to feed the enemy population, to take them out of harm’s way.
We know what the Allies did in World War Two. You know, they landed in Normandy, and they had to go through French cities that were occupied by the Wehrmacht, the German army. You know what they did? They just plowed through. They — and I’m not, you know, I respect and admire Churchill enormously. I don’t think he was a war criminal. I don’t think Eisenhower was a war criminal. Of course not! But they had to win the war, and as they continued, and went into German cities, they did the same.
Now, we don’t go to such lengths. It’s a different era. It’s a different time, and we unfortunately lose many of our brave soldiers in the process, because we don’t “Dresden” the place, okay? We just don’t. We could, but we don’t. And so Israel, that is taking these unbelievable measures, as I said, is being accused, while Hamas, that is taking these unbelievable measures to to starve its population and kill its civilians, they’re getting off scot-free.
So I don’t think — I think the European cynicism and the weakness will dissipate. Appeasement usually does, if the the other forces win, and we are the “other forces,” and we intend to win.
Netanyahu also said that few European leaders had shown the “strength” Trump had, in the face of terror.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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